The logic, theory, and experiences that connect an open civil
society with a stable majority-run democracy are well known. Civil society is
meant to be a third space where we voluntarily come together to take action as
private citizens for the public good. Majority-run democracies need to, at the
very least, prevent those who disagree with them (minorities) from revolting
against the system. Civil society provides, at the very least, the
pressure-release valve for majority-run governments. Positioned more
positively, civil society is where those without power or critical mass can
build both and influence the majority. It serves as a conduit to the majority
system and a counterbalance to extreme positions. It also serves as an outlet
for those actions, rights, and views that may never be the priority of a
majority, but that are still valid, just, or beautiful. When it exists, civil
society offers an immune system for democracy—it is a critical factor in a
healthy system, and it requires its own maintenance. Immune systems exist to
protect and define—they are lines of defense that “allow organism[s] to persist
over time.”

Civil society always struggles to define its independence from
governments and markets. Civil society is shaped by laws and revenue streams,
but has different accountability mechanisms and relies on voluntary
participation. It is distinct from compulsory government rights and
obligations, and can often operate in ways that aren’t about financial profit.
But to describe the resulting space as truly independent is aspirational at
best. While universal human rights such as free expression, peaceable assembly,
and privacy provide its moral and philosophical underpinnings, civil society is
shaped by the laws of the country in question. These include regulations about
allowable sources of financing, public reporting, governance structures, and
defined spheres of activity. At the very least, the boundaries of civil society
in modern democracies are set by government action.

We are surrounded by big, fragile institutions. Global
companies, established political structures, and big nonprofits have purchased,
suppressed, or ignored the fluid and small alternatives surrounding them.
Fluid, networked alternatives exist and will continue to spawn. For some time
now, the fate of these alternatives was absorption by the top or diffusion with
limited impact. In each sector, there appears to be a notable change of
attitude in the way the small views the big. While corporate near-monopolies
and dominant political parties are still viewed by some as the natural and best
order of things (see, for example, tech executives and incumbent politicians),
the big players in each sector are rigidifying. I sense that this is matched by
a new attitude from the emergent, smaller, and more fluid groups who aspire to
challenge rather than to buttress.

This is where reminding ourselves of the dynamism of a social
economy within civil society is so important. It helps us to keep our eyes
simultaneously on emerging forms and on the relationships between them (the
nodes and the networks). It’s where we see tech-driven alternatives to party
politics, nonprofit or research-driven alternatives to corporate data
monopolies, and the crowdfunding of public services. What’s changed is not the level of dynamism among these
small, fluid, and cross-sector strategies. What’s new is the confrontational
nature they now bring. These alternatives don’t see themselves as mere fleas on
an elephant; rather, they challenge themselves to be the termites that topple
the houses.

The sense of failed systems can be seen in the rise of
autocrats where democracy once ruled, in the lived experience of a changed
climate even as a few powerful holdouts cling to their self-interested denials,
and in the return to prominence of racist or nationalist factions where they’d
been marginalized before. Threats about nuclear warheads catch people’s
attention. There is a pervasive sense of uncertainty.

Democracies depend on civil society. Closing civil society
often precedes a democracy’s shift into autocracy or chaos. Defending civil
society is not just an act of self-preservation. Protecting the rights and
interests of minority groups, and allowing space for collective action and
diverse beliefs, a cacophony of independent voices, and activities that yield
neither financial profit nor direct political power, are in the best interest of
elected political leaders and businesspeople.

The
language of the social economy helps us describea
diverse system of institutions and financial flows. The language of civil
society helps us articulate the purpose of the social economy and its role in
democratic systems. Digital civil society encompasses all the ways we
voluntarily use private resources for public benefit in the digital age.

The
hallmark feature of civil society in a democracy is its (at least,
theoretical) independence from governments and markets. Civil society is
meant to be a “third space” where we voluntarily come together on the
proverbial (or literal) park bench to take action as private citizens
for the public good. Our use of digital data and infrastructure blurs
these distinctions and complicates these relationships for a simple
reason: Most of “digital space” is owned or monitored by commercial
firms and government.

The conditions that support civil society’s independence have
been weakening for a long time and for many reasons. Support for research from
conflicted interests has tainted universities and nominally independent
research centers for years. News organizations sustaining themselves via ad and
subscription revenue are mostly a thing of the past. A small number of big donors
have been shown to shape political campaigns, legislative and legal strategies,
and the charitable nonprofit landscape. While crowdfunding and crowdsourcing get a
lot of press attention, the other end of the scale is shaped by large
concentrations of money from a few interests.

Today we must attempt to understand both the analog and
digital relationships between these actors. We must examine how these
relationships shift when organizations and individuals become dependent on
digital tools, data, and infrastructure. These dependencies do much more than
accelerate and expand the reach of individuals and organizations. They
introduce new forms of activism such as hacking and raise new questions about
authority and control between individuals and the companies that run the
digital platforms.
Most important, these dependencies bind traditionally independent civil society
organizations and activities closely to marketplaces and governments in complex
and problematic ways.

Our daily use of the
most basic tools of the digital age, such as cellular phones, email, and
networked printers, means that our activities are bounded by and reliant on the
rules and tools of the companies that make the gadgets and wire the world. As
we use these tools, our activities are also monitored by the governments that
surveil the digital spaces in which our tools operate. Our actions in this
space are shaped by the values of the companies that make the tools (even as
the companies seek to deny this) and by the way we respond to being watched by
both corporations and governments.

These digital dependencies significantly
challenge civil society’s independence. This matters to how individuals and
organizations work within the sector. And it matters to democracies that have
long relied on the “immune response” provided by a diverse and fractious space
where minority demands, rights, and ideas could thrive with some degree of
independence.

It is no coincidence that experts see signs that the space for
civil society is closing, that those monitoring Internet freedom see rising
threats, and that those monitoring the health of democracies fear for the
future. We can’t decouple these pieces. Efforts to “save democracy” will depend
on understanding how digital technologies have changed the relationships
between sectors. I discuss this in more depth in the section on digital
dependencies.

About me

Why is this blog called Philanthropy 2173?

This is a blog about the future. The year 2173 seems sufficiently far enough in the future to give us some perspective. As sure as we are of ourselves now, talking about the future - and making philanthropic investments - requires that we keep a sense of modesty and humor about what we are doing. Philanthropy is for the long-term - for the year 2173.